The invention relates generally to pet grooming tools and more particularly to a tool for removing loose hairs from a pet's coat.
Grooming is an important part of caring for furry pets. Removing detached hair, such as the loose hair from an animal's undercoat, is generally desirable. Particularly with dogs and cats, whose coats tend to molt or shed hair, a tool that can remove detached or almost detached hairs, while leaving live, secure ones in place, has become increasingly important to owners of such pets. It limits the amount of hair the animal might otherwise shed indoors and/or in undesirable locations. Removing detached hair also serves to improve the appearance of pets, by making their fur coats look more kempt and clear.
Many pet owners and pet groomers employ combs, brushes and devices similar to tools for removing lint from clothing. Others employ a toothed blade that has been designed for use with electric animal grooming sheers. They pass the blade through a pet's fur coat to remove the detached hairs. Still others have taken to using such a toothed blade mounted to a handle, as, for example, the “Furminator De-Shedding tool” (disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,509,926 and incorporated herein by reference), for perceived better gripping and handling of the toothed blade.
Some users of existing grooming tools feel they remove too much live hair from the animal's coat. This can occur if toothed blades including relatively sharp blade portions unintentionally cut and sever live hair or engage live hair strongly enough to undesirably remove it from the pet. Additionally, machining toothed clipper blades is an expensive process. Assembly of such de-shedding tools can be labor intensive, time consuming and/or expensive, such as when the handle is fitted with a slot for inserting the toothed blade and the toothed blade is aligned and then fastened in the slot.
Accordingly it is desirable to provide a grooming tool for a pet, such as a dog or cat, which overcomes shortcomings of existing pet grooming tools.